Sources told ABC News that all five lawyers who were expected to represent former President Donald Trump have resigned a few days before his trial before Congress.
The sources said the team led by South Carolina attorney Butch Powers resigned over differences over how to defend Trump.
In addition to Bowers, who also worked in the Justice Department during the rule of former President George W. Bush, Deborah Barber, who worked as a federal attorney general for 15 years, and attorney Josh Howard also resigned.
The lawyers had planned to defend the constitutionality of a trial given that Trump is now a former president, while Trump wants to focus on what he calls election fraud.
CNN stated that Trump wanted the defense team to focus his arguments on what he considers fraudulent elections, and not on the unconstitutionality of the trial, which was rejected by the withdrawing lawyers.
According to Reuters quoted an informed source, this "joint decision", indicating that this decision will confuse Trump's defense team, which is preparing for trial.
The sources believe that there will be other attempts to obtain new lawyers to cover this shortage in the coming days, despite the refusal of many lawyers who worked with Trump or represented him during his recent impeachment trial in the Senate, and among them is Trump's former chief lawyer, Jay Siculo, who Like him in his first impeachment trial.
Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal attorney, also announced that he would not represent the former president after he appeared at the same gathering that preceded the storming of the Capitol on January 6.
The storming process was preceded by a rally of Trump supporters who asked them to go to the Capitol and repeatedly said they should fight for him.
Hours later, supporters of Trump stormed Congress during a session of both chambers to certify Biden's victory in the presidential election.
Republicans in the Senate had demanded that the trial be postponed after receiving the impeachment bill until Trump works with his still-forming legal team.
Al-Jazeera correspondent in Virginia Muhammad Al-Alami says that Trump is determined to narrate that the presidential elections are rigged, although support for this theory has almost completely collapsed, with the exception of very few parties.
According to Al-Jazeera correspondent, most Republicans in the Senate refuse to hold the trial, in form and not in substance, claiming that the trial of a president who has already left office is unconstitutional, and they do not raise the debate to the issue of defending him and confirming what he goes to by saying that the elections are rigged.
Rapid trial
The American "CNN" network said that Trump's parliamentary trial, scheduled for the eighth of next February, is expected to be "faster, easier to understand and stronger."
The Los Angeles Times reported that Democratic lawmakers in the House of Representatives responsible for the upcoming trial in the Senate, and who act as prosecutors, are preparing for what (to be) a radically different procedure, armed with lessons learned from the first trial to indict Trump. By default, and with a more clear and direct case in light of their control of the Senate and the White House.
As in 2020, Trump's acquittal is almost certain because it takes 67 senators to convict him, and most Republicans voted earlier this week that the impeachment was unconstitutional because Trump had already left office.
On January 13, the House of Representatives charged Trump with the responsibility of inciting the revolt against the government and storming the Congress building, after he addressed a crowd of his supporters in Washington on the sixth of the same month, alleging that the elections were rigged in favor of his rival (the current president) Joe Biden .
The most dangerous case It
is reported that FBI agents considered the storming of the Congress building the most dangerous case since the attacks of September 11, 2001, amid accusations by supporters of Trump's campaign of financing the demonstration that led to the storming.
The "Washington Post" newspaper quoted some FBI agents describing them as the most dangerous issue of the congressional storming since the 9/11 attacks, stressing that they attach great importance to determining the extent of planning and coordination. Between groups of intruders.
The Wall Street Journal, citing sources among the demonstration organizers, said that Alex Jones, one of Trump's most prominent fundraisers, received donations to finance the demonstration.
The Wall Street Journal also reported that Julie Jenkins Fanseli, heir to the Publicex chain of stores, donated about $ 300,000 to fund the demonstration, and that Jones facilitated obtaining this funding from it, as she was a prominent financier of the Trump campaign.